The Broken Road
by Karevsanatomy
Summary: Life's road has many twists and turns. Nobody knows that better than Meredith, Alex, Izzie, Cristina, and George. They have all made their mistakes. The question is, can they fix them? MerDer, MerMark, Lexzie, Cristina, George
1. Chapter 1

-1

Chapter One

Painful Reality

Slender fingers wrap around the delicate crystal stem of a wine goblet. Every so often the glass would lift to a pair of full lips, coming away less some of the dark red liquid that filled it. A soft pink smudge marred one edge where the woman's lipstick had worn off. This wasn't her first glass, nor would it be the last.

"Happy Anniversary to me," she says bitterly, taking another sip; the last sip. Slightly trembling fingers lift a nearly empty bottle of Merlo. A splash of the dark liquid sloshes over the rim, plopping onto the upper thigh of her white slacks. She watches the stain slowly spread, leaving a mark that would forever blemish her favorite slacks. "And why not? Everything else in my life is ruined. Why not my favorite pants?"

A slight noise causes her hazel eyes to fixate on the golden oak door that was a mere three feet from the stairs she sat on. Silently, she willed the door to open. She willed that, for once, her husband would remember that tonight was important and choose her over his precious job. The door doesn't open. Instead a rather obese cat with pale orange, almost peach, fur pads across the foyer. It let's out a rather loud meow, twining through her legs. Bending slightly, she uses her free hand to scratch the soft fur, while sipping her wine.

"Look's like it's just us, Peaches." Her voice echoes in the large entry way, adding to her sense of loneliness. Taking another sip of wine, she stares down at the purring cat that lay at her feet through a fine sheen of tears. It wasn't suppose to be this way, her alone and waiting on him. In the beginning it wasn't this way. In the beginning all they had needed was each other. Best friends, lovers, husband and wife. Now, there were to many nights like tonight to count. Nights spent sitting on the stairs watching the front door, waiting for him to come home.

"Am I pathetic or what?" A rueful laugh passes her twisted lips. The cat lets out another loud, woeful meow, as though to agree.

"Mommy?"

A sweet, little girl voice drifts down the stairwell, causing her fingers to tighten even more around the fragile stem of the goblet. Her teeth clench, unclench. "What?" The harshness in her voice doesn't go unnoticed by the almost ten year old girl standing above her.

"When's Daddy coming home?"

She let's out a bitter laugh, lifting the glass to her lips. Another sip. Another wave of self pity fueled by bitterness and anger. "Who knows," she answers, the bitterness carrying over. There had been a time when she could have answered right to the second when 'Daddy' would be home. Now, well now she knew better than to give answers. Especially to the dark haired child standing at the top of the staircase. Lucky girl, she still was able to live in her happy bubble, not aware that 'Daddy' wasn't really her daddy and that he didn't care about them enough to come home.

"Oh." There is a soft little sigh, and the creak of a stair. "Is he at work?"

"Where else would he be?" Pressing her lips into an ugly line, she twists her head to the left, looking up the dark stairs. Only an outline of the thin, youthful body could be seen. A familiar resentment swells up in her. An unwanted child she was forced to pretend to love. She had done it for him, she had taken her ex-husband to court and sued for full custody just for him. She supposed it was her own fault, filling his head like she had with tales of how horrid the ex had been.

"I dunno. Think he'll tuck me in when he comes home?" No if's in her childish vocabulary. Ever the dreamer, Ava always trusted that the man she called father would come home. Ava. He had thought it would be fitting that they name her little girl after the woman she had been when they met. There had been no way to tell him that she still wanted the name for herself. There had been no way to tell him that she felt nothing for the baby girl he thought was a miracle.

"Doesn't he always?" She lifts the glass only to find it empty. Muttering a curse she slams the glass onto the step below the one she sat upon. It took every ounce of will power to not pick it back up, to hurl it across the room. She wouldn't though. Not with Ava watching. She didn't need the little inconvenience running to 'daddy' with tales of mommy's temper tantrum.

"Yeah." Another soft sigh. "Night Mama. Love you."

Rebecca doesn't bother to return the sentiment. The word love never crossed her lips were Ava was concerned. No point in letting the child think she was anything but a mistake. Much the way her marriage to Alex Karev was. It was a painful reality.


	2. Chapter 2

-1Chapter Two

Broken Perfection

Haunted eyes stare vacantly ahead, lost in the reflection staring back at her. She barely recognized the woman. Perfectly styled shoulder blade length hair the color of honey. Slender body encased in a classy, yet sexy, black pants suit, feet encased in three inch heeled black patent leather Jimmy Choo's. Large diamond studs, as well as the tennis bracelet on her left hand, spoke of success. Yes, the woman in the mirror was nothing, if not a success.

The soft whisper of the bathroom door cuts her attention from dwelling on the stranger in the mirror who was her. A beautiful woman with shining wheat colored hair in a creamy cap sleeved mock turtle neck top paired with a mocha colored a line skirt. Chocolate colored heels that looked a bit like Mary Jane's tapped across the gray marble floor. She knows the woman, and so they exchange friendly hello's before the other woman disappears into one of the bathroom stalls.

Her gaze reverts back to the mirror. Emerald colored eyes narrow. Whether she herself, or the woman she had become, was doing the glaring was yet to be decided. Letting out a sigh, she fishes a tube of soft berry colored lipstick from the tiny excuse of a purse she had brought with her. A far cry from the over sized tote she carried back home, but then she wasn't toting around wipes and snacks in this purse. Her heart aches, thinking of the two reasons for those wipes and snacks. Her babies who were no longer babies, but a precocious six year old and giggly three year old.

"Damn it. Don't cry." She softly ordered, applying a thin refresher of the lipstick. Her lashes rapidly blink as tear drops cling to them. Pale fingers twitched, desperate to grab the flip phone that was nestled in with the lipstick. She wouldn't though. They had agreed. No calling. They needed the time apart to think.

"Are you alright?"

She cocks her head to the left slightly, finding the blonde staring at her with concerned eyes. "I'm fine." What a liar she was turning out to be. She wasn't fine. She was far from fine. Her life was falling apart and she had nobody but herself to blame.

"Fine? You're not fine. Come on, this me you're talking to. Izzie. I know you. Don't say you're fine when you're not." Perfectly glossed pink lips lift into a twittering of a smile. A soft kindness shined from doe brown eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to spill the whole ugly truth out to Izzie. To tell her how she had cheated on her amazing husband with his so called best friend. A repeat of history if ever there was one. To tell her about the broken look in Mark's eyes when he came home early to find her fucking Derek in their. The same bed they had created their daughter and son. Thinking of it brings bile to her throat.

"I'm not fine. I just know that talking about it won't make it any better." She drops the tube of lipstick back into the miniature purse, longs to pull out the phone, then turns to flash the woman a smile. "I messed up big time, Iz, and there isn't a damn thing I can do to fix it." Her throat thickens with emotion. The broken surgeon who fixed everyone else but couldn't fix herself. She needed someone to fix her. Someone to tell her that Derek wasn't worth it, that he had never loved her, would never love her, and she was throwing away almost seven years of marriage, as well as her children's happiness. Someone to tell her that she had married Mark not because she was pregnant with their son but because she loved him. Why the hell couldn't' someone have told her that before she messed up?

"Ah." That was it. Just an all knowing ah. The concerned was joined by something else in Izzie's eyes.. "Is this about Derek?" A naked left hand brushes a stray golden curl from her face. Meredith feels the bile threatening to spew from her mouth. If Izzie knew, and she hadn't' told her, it meant word of her affair had gotten around the hospital. If it had remained their secret she might have been able to get Mark to forgive her "It gets better. Having people call you the dirty slut."

"They're calling me a dirty slut?" Meredith braced herself over the sink, certain she was going to be sick. Nausea had become a constant in her life lately, doubling with Mark finding her and Derek.

"A few people have," Izzie admitted. She licked her lips. "I think it was Rose who told everyone. Mark called her. Thought she should know what her husband was doing with his wife. At least that is what I heard."

She couldn't hold it back any further. The contents of her stomach splatter in the pristine white sink as sobs shake her slender body. Her perfect life was in a shambles and she had nobody to blame but herself.


	3. Chapter 3

-1**Author's note: I don't promote the activity that starts in this chapter. In fact, I am highly against it as I do not see it as a fair course to take. However, it is crucial to the story. I want to thank the readers who have taken the time to review my story. It really means a great deal to know my time isn't wasted or that the update wasn't satisfactory. I also apologize that this is not as good as the other chapters, at least in my opinion. **

Chapter Three

The tip of one long, slender finger gently rubbed across the thick rim of a squat tumbler full of amber colored liquor. Every so often the finger would cease it's endless rotation, lifting a fraction of an inch above the rim. A sigh would breeze past sensual lips and then the movement would pick back up. A mindless action that gave small comfort to a man who was slowly becoming desperate.

His life was nothing more than a super massive; a giant black hole from which there was no escape. A grimace creases his face. "Hit me again?" The tumbler makes a soft scratching sound as he slides it across the bar. The bartender, a youthful looking man with spiky blonde hair in a tuxedo, says nothing, simply refills the tumbler.

"I know this thing is boring, but seriously? Four glasses of brandy?" Glancing up, he finds a familiar pair of chocolate eyes studying him. There was an even mixture of concern and amusement twirling in their depths. "You don't have to stay. Nobody is going to blame you for splitting. Besides, you have a valid excuse. Happy Anniversary, by the way."

"Yeah. Happy Anniversary." The words dripped with bitter acid. There was no working up a façade of happiness for the anniversary of a ten year mistake. Lifting the tumbler, he takes a long swallow of the liquor, relishing the slow burn down his throat.

"Hm. Yeah. You sound as though you really mean that." A soft hand touches his shoulder, rubbing gently across his tense muscle. He knew the touch well. Even after eleven years, he knew that touch. "Things not getting any better?"

He can't stop the sarcastic laugh that burst from him. How could things get better when neither him, nor his wife, wanted to try? He couldn't stand going home anymore; not even for his step-daughter. Home was nothing but a cold, silent tomb. If they fought it might be bearable, but they didn't. They simply existed. He couldn't exist anymore. Nor could he end it, not so long as Ava needed him.

"You can't keep…"

One sharp look had the flaxen haired woman next to him falling silent. She presses her lips together, one side of her lower lip tucked beneath the upper. The small wrinkle working in her brow told him she was deep in thought. "Addison's here. She came specifically to see me." Her dark gaze shifts back to his face, then towards the bar tender. One bright smile from her and the younger man was leaning on the bar, a rather dazed grin on his face. "I need a Mango Daiquiri. Thanks." Sliding first one hip, then the other, she situates herself on the stool next to his. Their thighs brush against one another as she turns to face him. "She offered me a job. In Los Angeles. I would be able to buy into the clinic. Have more control over my patient load."

His body freezes. She was leaving. While those words hadn't crossed her lips yet he heard it in her voice. She was going to accept; and she was going to leave. "Sounds like a good opportunity."

"Yeah. It is. Golden." She murmurs a thank you as the daiquiri is place before her. Closing her lips around the straw peeking out the side of the large slender glass, she takes couple short sips then one long one. "Besides, it's not like I have anything holding me here." There was a touch of bitterness in her voice. It was always there, that bitterness.

"Lucky you," he muses, grasping the tumbler in one hand. He stares down at it, then gulps the remaining liquid.

"Things that bad? With Rebecca?" Her fingers brush gently across his forearm. A tightening in the pit of his stomach sends out small bells of warning. He wasn't that guy. He wasn't the guy that ignored his marriage vows simply because things were bad. "Alex?" Her body leaned closer, her golden hair falling over his shoulder as she tilted her head so she could study his face. He knew what she saw; a tired man close to forty who had no fight left in him. In short he was pathetic. So pathetic that he would rather sit at a bar drinking brandy instead of going home to his cold bitch of a wife on their anniversary. "Alex, come on, talk to me. This is me, Izzie. You can talk to me."

His head falls forward a bit, his lips twisting into an odd pucker of sorts. He twists the tumbler, watching the amber liquor slosh against the sides of the clear glass. "What do you want me to say Iz? That things are _that bad with Rebecca_? Fine. They're that bad. She makes life so miserable that I make up excuses so I don't have to go home. Hell, Iz, I've even started volunteering at the county health department doing pap smears. I would rather test over sexed teenage girls for S.T.D.s than go home." Scowling, he pushes the tumbler away. He watches with a mixture of horror and fascination as the glass topples over the opposite edge of the bar. The frat boy who was moonlighting as a bar tender sends him a sour look, one he returns. His problems consisted of a bit more than cleaning up a small pile of glass and alcohol. It was in that moment he realized he had drank far more than he had meant to.

"I'm sorry." The words weren't meant for him, but for the still pouting bar tender. His body stumbles slightly when gentle hands tug him from the bar stool. His body crashes against her's. Through the thin material of his cream and burgundy striped shirt and the soft cashmere of her sweater he can feel her heart pounding as hard as his. "I think it's time to leave," she says softly, her dark eyes catching his. The underlying concern almost over shadows the lust burning deep with in. "If you don't want to deal with…that is if you…well you can crash at my place. On the couch. If you don't want to deal…"

He doesn't recall much of the drive across town, just her giving directions to the rather rotund driver and then her urging him to at least try to remove himself from the vehicle on his own. Somehow he manages to. Muttering several curses he trips up the stairs to her apartment. Balance wasn't on his side as he stumbles over the thresh hold, his body crashing into her's once more. His hands settle on her hips to steady her. Their gazes collide. Her slightly trembling hands slide up his chest, her fingers curling into the soft cotton of his shirt. Gazes still holding their lips meet. He ignores the guilt that is clawing at his gut as he deepens the kiss. _ You shouldn't be doing this, _ a small voice hisses in the back of his mind. It sounded oddly like his wife's. He pushes it aside, instead focusing on the softness of Izzie's skin. Tomorrow. He would feel guilty tomorrow. Tonight he wanted to feel nothing but love, even if it wasn't real.


End file.
